


First Impressions

by shellalana



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Humor, POV First Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17181500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellalana/pseuds/shellalana
Summary: Mordecai's first impression of Lilith on meeting her at that fated bus stop. Trickery ensues when she puts her powers to good use, when Mordecai's oblivious to the existence of Sirens.





	First Impressions

The sweltering heat was something the people of Artemis grew up with, so sitting on the solitary bench in the hot sun meant nothing to me. It was several hours later when the sun dipped below the horizon and it started to grow cold that I started to shiver, never mind the fact that my bus still hadn’t shown up yet. The only bus route, I’d been told, was driven by a man with a face you couldn’t trust. Which covered a lot of people, since I’d come to this backwater planet.

Bloodwing screamed on my arm, and even though she knew to stop after a small nudge to her feathered chest, she persisted. Someone was approaching and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the look of them. Neither did I, for that matter. I’d been sitting at this bus stop for hours, thinking I was the only person to hear about this Vault, and now I was going to have competition.

Or worse: having to split my gains with them.

The first thing I noticed was the shock of red hair, so bright and so daring, I wouldn’t bat an eye if the bandits went after her first. In fact, it’d be a pleasant piece of work to use her as bait so I can get my shots off.

Blood fluffed herself up and shook her head; she was against the thought. Lucky for me she’s the bird and I’m her handler instead of the other way around.

The second thing I noticed was the lack of a weapon on the woman's hip. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of that small yellow jacket, and she walked with a swagger that reeked of “don’t fuck with me.” Whether that was something she carried with her to keep people away or she could really fuck up your day, I didn't give two shits to find out for myself.

She sat on the far end of the rusty bench, her hands still in her pockets, and drew herself as far away from me as possible. Which I was fine with. I wasn’t here to make friends.

Bloodwing, on the other hand, adjusted her wings before hopping onto the bench with a clattering of talons and hopped closer to the woman. I probably should have stopped her, but I wasn’t interested in taking a spiteful nip to the arm, so I let her be. She drew warily closer, her wings outstretched, ready at a moment’s notice to take flight if she needed to. And if the woman had any ill intentions, she’d find a bullet in her head even sooner.

Bloodwing gave her a gargling chirp before her final hop and found an errant thread on the jacket to bother. The red-haired woman slowly undid her arms, and I tightened the grip on my revolver. Bloodwing flinched only a little but happily went back to shredding away the loose string.

“Nice bird,” the woman finally spoke, her direction entirely focused on my bedraggled companion. It was then I spotted the third thing that was strange about her: the swirls of blue lines that peeked out from under her jacket sleeve. They wrapped around her arm in intricate patterns and finally stopped at her wrist, their meaning entirely beyond comprehension. Something tribal, I assumed. That seemed to be the trend around here.

“Nice tats,” I returned, though I didn’t lift my head to acknowledge her. There was no point in getting touchy-feeling on a place like Pandora.

“Waiting long?”

“Coupla hours.” And it would probably be a few more until the bus actually showed up.

“Let’s hope it’s here soon.” She slowly raised her arm, palm up, and held it out for Bloodwing to examine. If my mood were worse, I probably would have told her to fuck off and leave my bird alone, but Bloodwing seemed to be enjoying the attention of someone else for a change. Not that I needed her being socialized, that would be counterproductive to her purpose.

And to prove my point, she hopped onto the woman’s arm with a fluttering of her wings and gave another feral call. The woman giggled somewhat in response, and tentatively raised a finger to the creature’s neck. I bit back on a grin when she got a well-earned nip for that mistake. It had taken months for Bloodwing to even let me scratch her neck, and I still had the decades-old scars on my fingers to prove it.

The game was over, however, though Bloodwing lingered near the woman, investigating every inch of her clothing to see if there was something else to play with. But the longer we waited, the more we came to realize that the bus wasn’t coming. It also looked like the sun hadn’t moved an inch below the rocky horizon line, and I was beginning to wonder whether it had been hours or five minutes that had passed. The woman’s irritation, however, revealed that it wasn’t a trick of the mind as she stood up in a huff. Bloodwing hopped away from her, just in case this woman had been trying to trick her.

“Screw this, call me when the bus comes.” She stretched her arms over her head and meandered to one of the closer, run-down buildings.

 _Screw **that**_ **,** I thought. That bus comes, I’m leaving without her. More for me.

In the quiet of the land around us, I heard a familiar sound that seemed out of place for the surroundings: running water. At first, I thought it was a hallucination from the heat, but the more I focused on it, the easier it was to tell that it was coming from the building the woman had disappeared into.

A running shower. Might not be a bad idea to check it out, now that I thought about it. A quick sniff of my inner sleeve and I discovered that I smelled worse than I originally thought. No use jumping in now, though. My new “friend” probably didn’t like the company.

As I stood outside the hovel of a home, large plumes of steam eked out of the barren doorway and windows. They added a pleasant moisture to the air that made it somewhat easier to breathe, and I yearned to feel the refreshing sensation of warm water on my skin.

“Mind savin’ some hot water for me?”

There was a squeak of bare feet against the floor, and I assumed that I’d startled her. It was a few seconds more before she responded.

“Sure thing.” Her voice was more jovial than I expected, and I couldn’t be sure as to why. Still, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She soon exited looking quite refreshed and surprisingly dry, though the lack of light was making it a little hard to tell.

“Knock yourself out, tiger,” she said with a playful wink. Her eyes seemed to glow in the ensuing darkness, but I didn’t put much thought to it. I had a date with a hot shower and feeling clean again. Bloodwing took up her post outside, on the roof just above the doorway.

Except no matter how long I ran the shower for, no hot water came. The bent pipe sticking out of the wall spat out slightly rust-brown water, and it was more frigid than the air outside. Still, I wasn’t about to stroll out there naked and ask her what happened to the hot water, nor did I want to crawl back into my grimy clothes with sweat still clinging to my skin. I curled within myself when the freezing water hit my back, and a pathetic scream tore its way out. Being this cold should be illegal. Without any soap, I took to massaging the water across my skin in an attempt to feel better, but it only seemed to be making me more miserable by the second.

“Enjoying your shower?” I heard from outside and almost slipped on the floor in fright.

Showers this frigid, without even a squeal from her. She hadn’t been shivering either, nor had there been any goosebumps across her skin. I was starting to think that maybe this woman wasn’t human at all.


End file.
